


He Doesn't Like Cats

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 03:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: The cat needed a home.  Davey agreed to take it in.  He would never have helped you out if he hadn't wanted a pet.  Davey was not whipped, no matter what Jack says.





	He Doesn't Like Cats

Y/N: i need a favor

Davey: Sure, what’s up?

Y/N: you just agreed. no backing out now

Davey: Y/N.

Y/N: meet me behind the school

Y/N: bring a box

 

 

“Davey is my best friend,” you cooed into your arms. “If you like me, you’ll like him by proxy. Probably. Hopefully.”

To say that liking you was the same as liking Davey was a stretch, but Davey was winsome. He would be fine as long as he didn’t do anything stupid.

“And there he is,” you said, grinning at him while he approached. His eyes were already on what you were holding. “The life of the party. The VIP. The man of the—”

“That’s a cat,” Davey said, voice going up at the end as though it was a question.

“Well spotted.”

“It looks dead,” he said, nothing questioning about it.

“It isn’t.”

It did look it, though. The kitten was small, patchy, and buzzing with flies. If it hadn’t been walking when you found it, you probably would have assumed the same thing. It had settled into your arms without too much of a fuss, which was probably a universal sign that this was supposed to be the Salem to your Sabrina Spellman.

Davey looked at you, then at the box. “You can’t seriously want to keep that thing.”

You balked. “Somebody has to take care of it. Why not me?”

“Because your parents don’t want ‘anymore living things’ in their house,” he pointed out. “Because you have nowhere to hide a cat, especially if it needs special care.”

“You already agreed to help,” you said with a grin. “No take-backs.”

“You’re the devil.”

“Irrelevant.”

He groaned. “My parents will kill me.”

“Suitable. A life for a life.” You held the cat out to him, hoping that maybe there was a scrap of empathy in him somewhere. “C’mon, Davey. The cat needs help. I’ll do all the work; I just need a place for him to stay.”

“You can’t do all the work,” Davey said, “when it’s at my house.”

“I’ll come over all the time,” you said eagerly. “So much you’ll get tired of me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, a strange look on his face. Maybe it was suspicion. Maybe he was just thinking it through, imagining how he’d have to change his schedule to fit this in. “I could never get tired of you.”

“Please?”

“I don’t even like cats,” he said, defeated. He held out the box so you could settle the kitten in.

“You don’t have to like cats—just the one,” you said, scooping up the box and setting off toward Davey’s apartment.

 

 

Davey: If I touch him, I’ll probably get a horrible disease and die.

Y/N: dont touch him then

Davey: This is all on you.

 

 

“I feel like a mom,” you crooned.

“The mom of a gremlin, maybe,” Davey said. He’d locked the cat in a cage, both for his own sake and the cat’s. He’d read online that the cat needed a chance to get used to it’s surroundings, so he’d been trying to help it chill out in private. “Or like the queen that gave birth to the Minotaur.”

“Don’t talk about your son that way.”

He snorted. “Believe me, I’d remember fathering this beast.”

You winked at him, and he went a little pink.

“Not like that, you cretin.” He sat on the floor with you in front of the cage, crossing his legs. “We could always give him to a shelter, you know. To people who know what they’re doing.”

“We’ll take him to the vet tomorrow, and we’ll know what we’re doing after that.”

He sighed. “You want to keep him.”

“Of course I do. He’s perfect.”

“He has fleas.”

“He has feelings too, Dave, so watch your mouth.” You bumped your shoulder against his to soften the words, and he bumped back. “I want him. There’s no good reason; I just do. Please help.”

“Sure, sure. You know I will,” he sighed.

You grinned, laying your head against his shoulder. “Isn’t our son beautiful?”

“If you say so, dear,” he said. After a second, he laid his cheek against your head. Even through your hair, you could feel how warm his skin was. Maybe it was just warm in the room.

 

 

You weren’t sure there had ever been so many people in Davey’s room before, but cats were a siren call that no rational human could ignore. None of your friends were rational—aside from Davey, perhaps, but even he had succumbed.

“We took him to the vet,” he told anybody within earshot. “They gave us a food plan, and he has roundworm—”

“You’re killing the magic, Dave,” Jack said. “Don’t.”

It had taken a few days for the kitten to get comfortable in his new home, and even longer to reach a point where he didn’t lose his mind around new people. Your squad had been hankering to see him for ages, but Davey had been adamant about keeping the stressors to a minimum.

“I dunno, guys,” Elmer said. “I just watched The Haunting of Hill House, and you saw what happened to the kittens they took in—”

“We aren’t kids,” you said. “Between Davey and I, we can keep one cat alive. The vet mapped it all out.”

“There are probably other scary movies with bad cats,” Race said. He grinned, running his fingers along the length of the cat’s head. “Look out, Davey, the end of days is near.”

“The Black Cat, by Edgar Allan Poe,” Romeo said.

“Lucifer,” Albert said. “‘Cinderella’ didn’t play around.”

“Mrs. Norris,” Crutchie said. He hadn’t stopped smiling since he first saw the cat, and the cat seemed to like Crutchie just as much. No surprise there.

“Or,” you cut in, shooting a sidelong glance at an exhausted Davey, “this cat is gonna be like Crookshanks. That’d be pretty cool.”

“Not gonna lie, Y/N,” Davey whispered later. “This is harder than I expected.”

You grimaced. You’d trust Davey with a cat before anybody else, but you’d never intended to inconvenience him. “I can ask somebody else to hang onto him, if you want.”

“No,” Davey said hurriedly. “No, it’s fine, I’ve got it. I just hadn’t realized how much that would take, before.”

“I could come over more,” you offered. “Bribe you with snacks.”

He smiled, shooting a look at the shoelace the kitten was chewing. “That would be nice.”

You grinned back, warming up to the idea. It was always nice coming to Davey’s house. There was always good food, and anyplace with Davey obviously had good company. “You really will get tired of me, now.”

“Impossible,” he said.

 

 

Cat NAME POLL RESULTS:

Muffin Man - 2 votes

Name him Davey so we can replace Davey Jacobs with a better model - 8 votes

Jean Ralphio - 4 votes

Dat Ho - 7 votes

Wilson (Jesus, guys, a normal name) - 1 votes

Tom Hanks - 2 votes

 

 

“We aren’t naming the cat ‘Davey,’” Davey the Human said.

“That attitude is exactly why we wanted to get rid of you in the first place,” Race said.

“Use the second place name.”

You grinned. “You know, I thought that ‘Dat Ho’ had a nice ring to it.”

Davey’s glare was withering. “I should stop hanging out with you guys. How hard could it possibly be to pick a nice name? I’m even willing to use a pun at this point.”

Davey the Cat walked across Race’s backpack, claws scritching against the fabric. He slipped, hit the floor, and proceeded to act as though nothing had happened.

“He even looks a little like you,” you said. “Fitting to share a name, isn’t it?”

Race threw an arm over Davey’s shoulders. “It’s a compliment. Bask in it.”

 

 

Les sometimes sent you pictures of Davey with the cat. They would read together, or Davey would stay up two hours later than usual because he didn’t dare wake the cat up by standing.

You took a screenshot every single time. After a while, you started setting them as lockscreens on your phone. You had no good explanation when people asked about it.

 

 

“Y/N?” Davey rubbed his thumb over his lip while he looked at the chess board. “Are you going to the fridge?”

“Yeah.”

“If you get some cheese, you can give a little to the cat.”

You grinned. “You give him cheese?”

“Davey the Cat loves cheese,” he said, shrugging. “Might as well let him treat himself.”

“You’ve gone soft,” you said. The cat was sitting on the table, looking at that game board with as much interest as Davey was. Seeing it made you feel a little soft, too.

“I still don’t like cats,” he said.

“Just the one, huh?”

Davey said nothing. He rubbed the cat’s head, and the cat leaned into the touch.

 

 

You showed Jack and Race a picture of Davey with the cat, waiting for their faces to light up. They smiled, but didn’t seem as taken with it as you were.

“I was surprised when Davey took the cat,” Jack commented on the way to class. “He’s so whipped.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whipped,” Race said, dragging out the word. “You know, when somebody does absolutely anything their lover says. Davey’d jump off a cliff if you smiled at him while you asked him to. Actually, letting the cat in his house is probably crazier than that.”

“Davey isn’t whipped,” you said. “He’s just nice.”

“So’s Crutchie, and he would have at least asked his parents before saying yes.”

“Jack, Davey is your best friend. You know that he doesn’t do anything if he doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” you said.

“Of course it seemed like a good idea. You told him you’d hang out with him more if he did what you asked.”

You cringed. “I didn’t say it like that. He wanted the cat.”

“Davey didn’t want the cat,” Jack snorted.

“He literally told you that he doesn’t like cats,” Race said. “You need to listen better.”

You scowled at them. “Davey wouldn’t have taken Davey the Cat in if he didn’t sort of want him, a little bit.”

“He didn’t want the cat,” Jack said, as though you would only understand him if he spoke slowly. “He just wanted to make you happy.”

“I call BS.”

Jack put his hands on your shoulders. “Listen to me. Davey thinks you’re great, and wants to make all of your dreams come true, yada yada yada. You needed help with the cat. He could help with the cat. That’s all there is to it.”

“Please,” you said. “This is Davey we’re talking about.”

“Exactly. Why would Davey do something if he didn’t want to? Because what you wanted mattered more than what he wanted. It isn’t rocket science.”

It sure felt like rocket science. Actually, rocket science would probably have made more sense.

 

 

So, maybe had taken in a cat because you asked him to. That wasn’t so crazy, right?

It was a little crazy.

The real problem, the big thing that plagued your mind for days, was the guilt. You should never have asked him in the first place. When he hadn’t seemed interested, you should have backed off. Here he was, stuck with a cat, because he maybe sort of probably would have done anything to make you happy.

You called Jack one night, hoping that talking about it without seeing him might make it easier to ask questions.

“Has he ever told you that he liked me?”

“No,” Jack said immediately. “Davey’s not really like that, you know. He’s not really chatty, and he really doesn’t tell people things if he doesn’t want everybody knowing them.”

You knew that, of course. “What makes you think that he did this because he’s whipped, then?”

“Y/N, don’t be an idiot. You have eyes. You know how he is. If he didn’t want the cat, it was for you. If he had you come over to help, it was because he wanted you over. He can take care of a cat on his own. He likes you.”

You hugged your pillow. “Okay.”

Jack yawned. “Is that it? Can I go to bed?”

“One more question. Why did I ask Davey to take the cat in the first place? I knew that Davey didn’t really like cats.”

“Don’t get mad at me for saying so,” Jack said, “but we all assumed that it was because you like Davey back.”

“Oh.”

“Looks, it’s just—it’s always the two of you. It always has been. I’m not saying that you guys can’t be regular friends, but I’m not sure that either of you would be good at that. Not with each other.”

 

 

“Davey,” you said.

“Y/N.” He carefully peeled his string cheese to each strip was around the same size. 

“You don’t have to keep Davey the Cat anymore,” you said. “Crutchie offered to take him on.”

Davey blinked at you, surprised. His hands dropped a little, his snack forgotten. “Oh.”

“You didn’t want him,” you said.

“I know.”

“Now things can go back to normal.” You didn’t want Davey to be unhappy because he thought it was better for you. You weren’t sure what to think of Davey liking you—or the possibility (certainty) that you liked him back—but you could try to make life easier for him, at the very least. “You can have evenings to yourself again, now that I won’t be coming around.”

“Oh,” Davey repeated. There was no emotion on his face at all.

You grinned, a little too large to be real. “You were probably getting tired of me, after all.”

“I wasn’t,” he croaked. The emotion was there now, and you wished you’d talked to him before talking to Crutchie. “I really wasn’t.”

“You’ll be happier once everything is back the way it was,” you tried.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

You winced. “Look, I know that this was all for me. You don’t have to do this anymore.”

He went a little pink. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I talked to Jack—”

“Never listen to Jack. He’s had too much paint water to drink to be sane”

You half smiled. “Maybe, but he knows you pretty well.”

“No,” Davey said.

“Yes.”

“Maybe.”

“So,” you continued, “I’m going to make this right.”

“I want the cat,” Davey said forcefully.

“What?”

“I want the cat. I like the way my life is, now. I like Davey the Cat. I like having you over. I like that I’m your lockscreen, and I like coparenting, and I like—”

You kissed him, and everything else was far away. Sure, you were conscious of everything happening around you. You heard his food hit the floor. You heard cars honking outside, and the light tapping of rain against the window. You were aware of many things, but none of them mattered as much as Davey’s hands going to your waist, or the sharp inhale right before he started kissing you back.

“I, ah, really like coparenting with you,” you said after pulling back.

Davey smiled, baffled. “Okay.”

“I’ll tell Crutchie that you’ve changed your mind about the cat.”

“Okay,” he said again. His hands were still on your sides. “What—why’d you—”

“I’m just not tired of you yet,” you said.

Davey was grinning, still confused but incredibly happy. “I’m so confused right now.”

You kissed him again. That would illuminate some things.


End file.
